No problem or hassle whatsoever. I just find a shop (usually idealo), then I order - done.

It's so simple, there's not much to write about - lest a guide.

> You can often cut out the middleman if you are buying electronics. For computers, phones and TVs, Dell, Apple and Samsung are all offering free delivery on their products

That's why the guide goes beyond its purported goal and tries to avoid other shops as well?

> Environmentally friendly cleaning products, pet food and baby gear are available at Ethicalsupermarket.com. Standard delivery in the UK is free on orders over £50, or £3.95 on smaller orders.

Then specific shops and information about shipping?

Whatever - useless text. Just order somewhere else. It's that easy. (at least in Germany) (yes, I hate Amazon - yes, I make a living with AWS)

---

Special love goes to:

- booklooker.de

- medimops.de

- notebookgalerie.de

- thalia.de

- mcgin.de

I make a purchase and it normally shows up the next day. That's unreal (I'm near a distribution center, so that's not the normal 2 days stateside).

I need to make a return, I just click a button and bring the open box and item to any UPS store (there are 3 within 3 miles). They will package it for me and ship it. I just show them the UPC code on my phone with a ripped open box and an item.

They have a good system. This may be US only, but it's easy to understand why they are so popular.

I have separated myself from Google for privacy reasons (except a few things...) and try to avoid Amazon where I can and support local shops. So this isn't advocating Amazon, just pointing out that their competitors usually can't compete on returns and shipping time.

Returns are unproblematic almost everywhere since a 14 day on-questions-asked return policy for online purchases is EU law (and most online shops voluntarily extend it to 30 days). Sure, I have to package it myself, but that's no different than German Amazon.

Sure, Amazon is great, but so is almost everyone else (at least in Germany). Amazon's main advantage is only learning one interface and one set of processes for everything.

I just ordered electronics online in Germany, not via Amazon. It was in stock with a reputable stores. Still, my order from 9am got shipped two days later. Maybe Covid related but Amazon would've shown me that before I placed the order. Returns are fully automated with Amazon, very few other online retailers in Germany have that.

Also the no questions asked return policy is pretty unique. If I get a defective item I don't want to argue with the seller why it doesn't work, I just want to have a working replacement tomorrow. Amazon always delivers on that, others very rarely do.

I'd love to get away from Amazon and I'm not even that price sensitive. But until a shop matches their customer service, I'll stay with Amazon for 99% of my orders.

Although in the majority of cases things went well, the two things that really set Amazon apart is (A) the fact that it acts like an arbiter in favour of the buyer (which I argue it should be the standard anyway) and (B) it doesn't haggle or makes it difficult to return faulty or products I'm unhappy with for whatever reason. Again, though I didn't need to return many products for the most part, when I did need to do that a number of sellers made it cumbersome for me to do so.

For a more recent example, I've ordered food from Morrisons online (a UK supermaker chain) and one of the products was not in there. There was no easy way to get it fixed somehow (like a partial refund or something), which reminded me once again why I buy on Amazon even though I'd very much prefer not to.

Except in NL ... that's exactly what the other stores do when they say "order before 22:00 and have it delivered the next day!", almost entirely without doing the things that make people dislike Amazon.

> Also the no questions asked return policy is pretty unique. If I get a defective item I don't want to argue with the seller why it doesn't work, I just want to have a working replacement tomorrow. Amazon always delivers on that, others very rarely do.

We have a 30-day "change your mind" policy required by law, I thought that was a EU policy, but I guess it's Dutch ..

The 14 day period to return something you've purchased online (or by post or by phone), starting after receipt of the goods, is EU law.

Choosing local/national, ethical, tax-paying retailers is easily worth a very occasional inconvenience for me. Using Amazon pushes that inconvenience onto the warehouse staff, and whoever the government's current spending cuts are affecting.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...

Ordered items on the 24th (a Friday) and they said normal delivery was expected on the 30th (next Thursday) and premium would show up on the 27th (next Monday). Didn’t want to pay for Prime, so went with the standard shipping. Received the items the next day on the 25th (Saturday).

I’m not complaining, but I’ll never trust the Prime/premium shipping again which now just feels like a scam.

With the returns, isn't it an EU requirement that they take a return no-questions within something like 2 weeks?

Except when it's not reliable and it arrives 2 days later. Or, in the case of the used book I ordered a while ago, there's no indication of when or how it'll be delivered and only at the start of delivery it suddenly tells you that it'll take at least a month to ship because the product is on the other side of the planet.

Amazon is usually pretty good, but even with Prime it rarely takes less than 3-4 days to deliver, most local shops are at least a day faster. And with those I can be sure they won't sell me fake products mixed with genuine ones.

YMMV. I order Amazon/Others about 70/30. The vast majority of shops I order from have longer delivery times, 3-4 days from the time of ordering is what I’m used to.

And then there is Amazon Logistics which recently started becoming a thing in Lübeck. They are on the level of DHL and sometimes surpass them, with other stores you sometimes have to live with the horror of Hermes or DPD. Hermes and DPD are high-risk carriers that only usually deliver and if they do, who knows when. DHL at least is good most of the time. Amazon Logistics is super fast, usually has live GPS tracking and when someone couldn’t find my entrance yesterday (it’s a bit complicated), I got a call, explained where exactly it is, and they set a marker on their internal app for my address.

Funny, with Amazon Logistics it was the first time I ever saw such a feature :D

Many of the the features commenters in the US seem to value in amazon are mandated by law e.g. in Germany, and thus are provided by all domestic online retailers. This levels the playing field. I have had zero problems with returning orders for many years, most deliveries leave the shops at the day of my orders and so on, and I never order from amazon. The most recent anectode: Ordered bike parts from a german online retailer at sunday evening, packages will arrive in a few hours.

Meanwhile Amazon's listings for the same products with specific attributes are a giant mess - it's basically wild west since any seller can contribute to the product listing resulting in inconsistent attributes, unknown product versions and often multiple listings for the same or slightly different article. This also applies to other categories like outdoor clothing or audio equipment. For most product categories there are better options available.

And don't get me wrong - I'm a happy Amazon prime subscriber and enjoy their almost flawless fulfilling process, but these days I seem to only use Amazon for inexpensive, general, everyday items.

I do see how this is alluring but I find the urge to receive an item as soon as possible as a sign for immature impatience - if there is no actual reason for the hurry. So, I refuse to give in to it and happily wait 2 or 3 days.

> I need to make a return, I just click a button and bring the open box and item to any UPS store (there are 3 within 3 miles). They will package it for me and ship it. I just show them the UPC code on my phone with a ripped open box and an item.

Well, in case of other shops the hassle usually isn't much more either. Either the franking is provided as a decal or I'll have to print it. Then I bring it to a Packstation/store (there are 100 within 3 miles).

Regarding the packaging. I always feel a little guilty for sending something back and take pride in really taking care not just of the item but also of its packaging before returning it. I don't like other people cleaning after me - even if they make money of it.

Also my experience before quitting Amazon cold turkey was very mixed. I had several bad experiences with their service. Intransparent origin of shipment, forgeries, systematically unreliable reviews, items in bad shape, ... most shops treat me better.

My Amazon.co.jp order got dispatched on Friday from Yokohama and on Monday it was in my hands in southern Finland. This is something I couldn't reliably expect from a store that was within driving distance of my home.

Clearly, you don't require to be like Amazon for that kind of service.

EDIT: TIL: zvab is abebooks, which in turn is a subsidiary of... amazon. All roads lead to Rome.

zvab looks amazing (no pun intended)! will order something right away.

Living in Ireland, Irish stores can be very hit and miss. Amazon UK is often faster, very often cheaper, has cheaper shipping (even though it's coming from UK), has cheaper returns (returns through the post in Ireland are extortionate)

I'd honestly say in some ways its gotten worst over the years, probably from competition from UK retailers. If you are buying in big quantities, it's best to go with a big company, and they aren't in Ireland. If you are ordering small quantities, that's not enough to keep a company afloat.

It's so bad, when it comes to Electronics, Pet supplies or similar, it's often best to do exactly what you do, and order from Germany and deal with the language barrier and lack of credit card support.

Brexit will be interesting, but I see Amazon had announced in the last few days it's opening distribution centers in Ireland, so i guess it's inevitable that things are going that way.

German (physical) shops and restaurants hold a very special disregard for card payment but online it's rarely an issue. Either CC or PayPal (which I also try to avoid) will be provided.

For example, when buying a TV I was asking about a dumb panel with the latest and greatest display technology in a particularly small bezelless format. They couldn't do it (which I already knew) but sold me the smart and slightly larger TV for nearly half its official price with a "free" 5y rtm warranty. Pretty much the same price as I'd pay elsewhere for an "inferior" panel.

And slightly more recently I purchased a new laptop. The price was the same as everywhere else (£2k) but I got a fancy tilt/rotate stylus, 3y care, expediated delivery, and a windows home -> pro upgrade code (it was weird it didn't have it as default tbh) all for free.

Notably I'm not asking for the discounts and extras, I'm asking normal sales questions as though I wasn't able to read the manuals online.

On the other hand, there are plenty of things I rang up about and didn't purchase because it was better elsewhere. On the whole they seem to have been more mid to bottom range items, but I don't really know the internals of these companies.

Some time ago Amazon made changes to the way they sell Apple hardware. It is my understanding that Apple gave its blessing to let Amazon sell their products directly with the requirement that third party sellers aren't allowed to do so anymore. In my opinion that's a welcome change.

I've seen the occasional markdown on Amazon and MacMall but Apple's prices are generally pretty standard.

Also depending on your credit card you could get a better deal through buying your own gift cards. I currently have five percent off on grocery store purchases, so effectively any gift cards the grocery store sells are five percent discounts to the merchant. Best buy, target, Amazon are nearly always there. ITunes usually is but I don't ever recall seeing apple.

With some brands you only get a store warranty, but sometimes you might even get full manufacturer international warranty.

If you have insight into Apple’s product cycle, they usually discount the price to resellers a few weeks before they release a product and they are motivated to clear stuff out. I used to pay for college by taking advantage of that in the 90s!

Same with Ethanol/Denatured-Alcohol products. Amazon actually complies the law whereas other out of state distributors don't. Ebay is your friend there. It's how I got the stuff.

Price has unsurprisingly gone up a bit since I bought Mar 22.

Some other ones which are excellent:

Bike24.de Alternate.de Bikester.se

but they also boycott books they don't like: https://philosophia-perennis.com/2017/09/12/buchhandel-boyko...

In my opinion a book shop should not do this.

Amazon atleast in India is better than anything else.

It's very difficult to source things which are not common place goods.

For example, if I want to buy 3 phase, 1 horsepower motor, 4 pole motor AC induction motor. There would be no websites who directly sell, and if exists then it will charge rediculous price.

Most B2B purchase in India requires going through IndiaMart, where you post requirement (that too can't upload photo, has very small description limit)

Then vendors will hammer your phone with useless calls, asking the details you already offered and no one really replies to text. They don't understand not everyone wants to be on call.

There are rediculous number of vendors who import from China and live around a port city and have goods stocked in their wharehouse, shipping all over India. And they lie about being manufacturer, I am pretty sure they aren't even inserting a bolt in the final product.

And either companies are too big where they don't care about a guy who wants 1 motor, or they are too small that they don't even know how to sell online.

Amazon expanded the available products which can be bought without BS at competitive rates but it too missed niche category stuff.

For example, I can't buy lithium iron phosphate battery online at the moment, few websites appear in Google but they ask you to contact them.

I very sporadically order from Amazon if I can't find what I'm looking for elsewhere, but their website has been so infested with spam and sponsored results that it's hard to find a genuine product these days.

In general German eshop are the best (shopping from France).

I tried to shop Jet (before they were acquired) and I found the search / shop experience had too much friction. Amazon's UI has plenty of annoyances, but they've made it _real_ easy to get something into your cart and check out.

On the other hand, all of my music studio purchases I make at Sweetwater. Great customer service, free shipping, will price match if you ask, and frictionless returns.

IMO Amazon is vulnerable to good competitors, but the emphasis is on good. I can tolerate a small shipping fee, and I don't need next day or two day shipping (although it's nice). On the other hand if you make it hard for me to shop, customer service sucks, or I have to jump through hoops to return something, I'll go back to Amazon.

Had a very poor experience ordering from Ikea. Just some kitchen towels, nothing particularly interesting. Took six weeks to ship, zero updates on the site about order status, estimated delivery date came and went unceremoniously, wasn’t able to contact anyone via phone. Finally got an email out of the blue that they shipped and arrived intact the next day. Pretty much a ‘never again’ experience.

Amazon’s policies and employee treatment/relationships may need improvement or complete overhaul, but their execution at getting matter into your hands and dealing with issues is, in my experience, second to none.

But, if they happen to sell what I am shopping for... Sweetwater and B&H Photo are two stores from which I have had consistently great service. I've never been to Sweetwater in person, but the physical B&H store is also a cool experience.

That said, they're also delivering heavy furniture. I've never ordered those types of items from Amazon so I don't know how they fare.

Arguably the worst things about buying from Amazon all derive from third-party sellers: long shipping times (from China, generally), commingled inventory, counterfeit products, faked/swapped listings... Companies like Newegg should be explicitly doing the opposite as a competitive advantage -- yet they seem to be copying. I don't get it.

Sweetwater (who I mentioned upthread) are great because they do musical instruments (and related) and nothing else. Deep domain knowledge, rich and well organized catalog, community of music nerds, and (as far as I've noticed) no third party junk.

A Newegg could theoretically do the same for computers and peripherals. (Find me all motherboards compatible with i7 and ddr4, with usbc, blinkenlights and onboard wifi - much easier on Newegg than Amazon, but unfortunately it suffers from the aforementioned issues).

Look for a Ryzen 7 laptop with 16GB RAM from Newegg. I mean specifically check 'Newegg' as the only seller. You get two choices starting at $900.

Then uncheck 'Newegg' as the seller and sort by lowest price. You get 24 of the exact same laptop from 24 different sellers with an $80 spread in price. And that's just the cheapest 24 items. There are hundreds more. They start from $650.

For every $900 laptop Newegg sells from its own inventory, they have have to source it, receive it, photograph it, inventory it, ship it, etc. For every $700 laptop from somebody else, they have to...well, do almost nothing. Somebody they don't employ does all the rest. They just keep their web app up and running. Granted, the development of the site is expensive. But it's not expensive per item.

So they can make $50 off every $700 laptop with a minimal expense of pennies per sale. Or they can make $50 off some $900 laptops that cost them pennies + $150 labor per sale.

I'll never touch newegg again. Their own system said I never received something I paid for, and yet sorting it out took 2 months and 6 attempts contacting customer support.

I think we’ve started to acclimate to how good it is that we forget the old world.

Recording gear: Long & McQuade.

Tools: Lee Valley.

Photo gear: Henry's.

Amazon provides a way for me to avoid Walmart.

It's awfully low tech, but the local indie book shop here in Vancouver will order any book you ask for and deliver it throughout Metro Vancouver. All you need to do is call them and ask.

Many families have quit because they lost their jobs. All of us have converted online one way or another...and trying to survive based on who has been retained. But this was like a kick in the nuts.

We all know how frustrating and time-wasting it can be, when calling for professional service...

In the end, it's still a tech problem.

Amazon has the tech, and the customer base to form a virtuous cycle.

The smaller shop dont have that.

We need more Shopify like supplier, with varying degrees of sophistication and targeted customer groups.

Calling is a waste of time when you're dialing a megacorp like your phone company or utilities provider, because they treat customer service as a cost center and do everything possible to prevent you from talking to a human who isn't reading off a script.

Smaller shops will usually have someone who just picks up the phone when you call.

Give me a website I can browse with all the information (and the rest of the internet) at my fingertips any day of the week. (To a lesser extent I find in-person shopping a frustrating exercise too.)

1) Go to Amazon (or Monoprice, or whatever - it's online vs local that I'm talking about here), search for "right-angle adapter from HDMI male to HDMI mini male", and look through the result photos until you find something that looks correct, most likely somewhere on the first page. If it were a more expensive item, maybe you'd spend an extra minute checking the ratings, reviews, and questions. Either way, you find exactly what you need by searching for an exact descriptive phrase.

2) Call some local shop, and have this conversation:

A) "Hi, I'm looking for an HDMI cable, but it needs to be a certain shape and size, do you have a selection of those?"

B) "Sure, I think so, what do you need exactly?"

A) "Well, it's HDMI male on one side, HDMI mini male on the other side, and the mini side needs to have a right angle connector. I need it to be at least a foot long, ideally not much longer than that."

B) "Ok, let me go check on that..."

A) [wait a little bit]

B) "I have a few options here, was that a right angle on the mini side or the full-size side?"

A) "Mini side"

B) "Ok I don't think we have exactly that, but..."

Then, repeat as many times as you can stand with other stores.

This isn't some theoretical example. Something like this happened to me a few years ago, and I made a conscious decision to use online merchants more often because it's an easy trade to make to regain a bit of time in your life.

I expect the successful ones will have decent ecommerce platform within the new few years.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22773393

And Bookshop is just the newest one, as others like Alibris have been around for much longer.

Also their staff are way more helpful than any person at a big box hardware store.

Otherwise while I get wanting to support local stores, have a bookstore order a book for you to have them deliver it feels way too wasteful when you could order the book from systems directly hooked with the publisher that will send it straight to you, delivered by professional drivers.

I bought a pfSense-style router recently, and a Pi 4B, both from small shops (one Swedish[1], one French[2]). They shipped within 24h. These people are hard at work, and they deserve all the credit they can get.

In particular, the Swedish one had a very nice knowledge base on their products (they select / assemble parts themselves, cost is as low as it gets, I value the work they do since it's saving me time and hassle).

___

[1]: https://teklager.se/en/

[2]: https://www.kubii.fr/ (sadly, language is Fr-Es-It only, but I guess we've got Google Trad for that)

Various local retail I've been trying to buy from: * Cat supplies delivered from Happy Cat. * Stationary and cards from Regional Assembly of Text * Beer from 33 Acres.

If anything, thanks to them being a go-to platform, they’ve single handedly allowed a lot of third party shops to sell their inventory, and have come out net positive as a result. I don’t mean to sound as an apologist saying this - just stating the bloody obvious.

The “vote with your wallet” rhetoric doesn’t work. It’s half past feel good bullshit. If you want these companies to change it must be codified into the law and backed up by hard time.

But good luck with that, since China is a massive trade partner and every country is turning a blind eye to them imprisoning people in concentration camps and harvesting organs. It’s unlikely The States are going to have a change of heart anytime soon.

Most people are happy with Amazon and like the service they provide - this kind of thing is a non-story.

I say this as someone who buys directly from suppliers like Dell or Logitech when I think there's a risk to getting repackaged or counterfeit items from Amazon, but the experience is often worse (Dell monitors took 5 weeks to arrive).

I think these articles are a symptom of something else, but I'm not quite sure what it is. It feels like a political or tribal position, anti-large company, or anti-success? - I'm not quite sure, but I think there's an underlying theme that drives these types of articles and it isn't what they're directly about. They're okay with a small under-dog company story, but if you become large and successful then you're automatically written about in the most uncharitable way possible.

Can I assume that out of concern for these workers you also don't buy food, don't fly commercially, you dispose of your own refuse, never use anything made out of wood and never enter a man made structure?

I shop at the local food co-op, and I'm fine with the union leadership for flight attendants and my local waste removal folks. I can't be perfect -- no one can -- but this is a lot better than some others. Of course, this sort of individualistic atomization of "virtue" with almost zero systemic change to address the underlying concerns is ultimately kind of pointless, but I don't see a reason to start encouraging the exploitation of fellow humans any more than I do now.

Your response makes me think you were triggered by my position. What stake do you hold with Amazon? Why are you coming to their defense?

also danger != horrific working environment

My intention is not to push this narrative. All of us compromise every day on our values, and some matter more to us than others. Personally I thought I'd never drive a fossil-fuel-based vehicle but that quickly became impractical as my priorities called me beyond a 10-mile radius around my home.

> trying to hold Amazon to higher standards

Do you think Amazon is held to high standards already? I hold them to mediocre standards because I understand they have to compete on an absolutely massive scale in an industry with razor thin margins. But even so, they're not doing all that well. Amazon's coffers are so full they can't re-invest their capital fast enough. So I don't see how anyone can argue that it's bad for society to treat employees as if they're humans who can catch & spread a virus and/or die.

If Amazon does indeed engage in illegal behavior, then one should be hell bent on calling them out but the whole raging behavior at all times drains the emotional bank and when the actual crimes occur people don't have appetite for it.

And even if amazon is held to a higher standard (which is a big if), considering that they are by quite a margin the biggest player so what they do creates a signal to all other players about what is acceptable. Moreover with their profits they could afford to treat their employees well.

Those others are likely why this article is popping up now. In the past, people who did not like Amazon would simply shop locally. Now these people have to explore online options. Of course, Amazon has the mindshare so people may not think of the alternatives. People who seek alternatives may find it difficult to determine who is reputable and who is not, or simply who has their act in order to handle online orders efficiently, which also works in Amazon's benefit.

Regardless of how you view their desire to shop elsewhere, that desire still exists. The Guardian was simply facilitating the process for people who want alternatives.

91% with a favorable view of Amazon, and that's sourced via a media company:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-survey...

Amazon the 2nd most trusted brand in America:

https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/

THIS:- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/introduction-of-t... Effective from 1st April 2020 and directly affects Amazon in the UK.

Wasn't it already decimated by the big box retailers and Wal-Mart?

It's important to also recognize how individuals and families have benefited from Amazon during this time, including myself.

Where you inconvenience yourself for some time to line up in a booth to select someone who you more likely just hated less.

Now imagine doing that all day every day, the inconveniences each time might be smaller, but hey, Amazon is always there. The 'voter turnout' is going to drop to 0 real fast.

There's a growing sense that we ("the free world", western countries + usual friends like Japan, Oz, etc) are about to enter a cold war with China, though, following the COVID-19 debacle.[1] The CPC's ultimate responsibility will likely define the magnitude of that (which may range from mild such as tariffs, to hard e.g. Soviet era, passing by sanctions of various degrees, forbidding companies to even trade let alone joint-venture in China, etc).

Independently of diplomacy, the particular conditions of a pandemic seem to call for less dependence on foreign powers, at least on a continental basis (some capacity for autarky on a temporary basis).

Independently of the above, history shows that out of the 16 last times there was a shift in world's first GDP (here US → China), no less than 12 led to war.[2]

Again independently, the general sentiment towards China has deteriorated faster than ever in 2019 (before crisis), due to the White House posture notably (trade tensions, mutual racism/xenophobia).[3][4] This went even lower recently.[5]

A key factor notably, in my opinion, is that anti-China sentiment used to be correlated with age: people over 50 were more likely to have such a view, while younger categories held a more favorable view; but recent events are likely to sway the opinion across the board. Anyone old enough to have a political opinion isn't likely to "forget" COVID-19 or "forgive" wrongdoings in the matter if responsibility is proven in the public eye.

There is little substance to redeem any of these facts, I'm afraid.

____

A personal take on this [Disclaimer: opinion still in flux as information comes in. Strong conviction, but loosely held.]

I don't see how China doesn't lose most of their international credibility in this affair. Once global production and logistics flows are restructured to take China out of the equation (it'll take years, a decade at least I think), it will take an even longer time to come back, if ever (other superpowers, more worthy of trust, may emerge in a generation's time). It will cost the world a lot, may prolong the depression much more than if we looked the other way, but deaths in the 6 figures (possibly an order of magnitude more by then, even two...) is simply unacceptable, reason enough to do it, to isolate them and take the collective hit. We can take it, the combined power of the world minus China is still overwhelmingly capable to drive growth. There are tons of candidates where investment will flock to fund factories, and some of these will come back 'home' for a number of strategic sectors.

I'm afraid China's economic appeal has all but collapsed for this generation (next 10-20 years). I don't think most people realize it yet, but the pile of arguments for a cold war is damning, historically aligned with most precedents, and actually a rare occurrence of too much at once.

(Let us pray there was no malign intent towards the world, for that would likely remove the "cold" adjective above.)

China may just have lost its shot at becoming the world's "leader", and it seems they only have themselves to blame, as their lack of transparency and their negligence for human life are cold hard choices they still keep making, some 30 years after Tiananmen. We hoped China was ready and could change, we thought it would evolve towards a more trustable partner, but instead it maintained its internal dystopia more strongly than ever, and actually engaged actively in trying to change us (remember how, very recently, they were trying to force the NBA and so many corporations to essentially bend to the CPC's propaganda... needless to say, that ship has most likely sailed for good). If we needed a reminder (apparently we did), authoritarianism kills.

So this:

> But good luck with that, since China is a massive trade partner and every country is turning a blind eye to them imprisoning people in concentration camps and harvesting organs. It’s unlikely The States are going to have a change of heart anytime soon.

Seems incredibly anachronic to me. It was true in 2019, but that world is now over, for good.

I agree with everything else you said.

____

[1]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3081601/co...

[2]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/09/the-thucydides-trap/

[3]: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/08/13/u-s-views-of-c...

[4]: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/12/05/attitudes-towa...

[5]: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-public-opinion-toward-c...

As a European, I wholeheartedly agree.

It's not a new sentiment either. The US has grown increasingly hostile towards the world since the turn of the century, Bush Jr.

Needless to say, 45 made things way, way worse, but the US made that choice and is poised to double down come November, despite the criticality of current events. The why and how does not matter to the outside. Dems/GOP blablabla, corruption blablabla, Biden blablabla, Hillary blablabla... who cares? Get your shit together!

It's worrying (at an all-time high as we speak) for foreign states and companies. For many around the world, being too tied to the US has become a liability indeed, adding too much uncertainty (risk) to their bottom line or stability. This is no more acceptable than China's lies and deceit. Humbling reminder that hostility is not without consequence, and pretty much always results in lose-lose outcomes.

Losing the US as a dependable, reliable world leader has been the most tragic loss of this century, in my opinion.

But you ask "why should they care?"

Well, I profoundly believe (stressing: belief, no crystal ball here) that no, they won't be able to just shrug it off, they stand to lose a pretty f-ing lot, and it has begun.

Ultimately damaging, delaying or even killing the "Belt and Road" project. That's Xi Jinping's #1 thing, by far the biggest international move they were actively executing, and it will certainly hurt if they lose it (I think the correct phrasing is "now that they've lost it", but let's be conservative here, time will tell).

I think the massive drop in foreign investment, combined with sanctions (or worse) may be huge enough to send them into a depth of economic crisis they hadn't experienced in decades (if only because it takes time to re-profile an economy this vast. A decade or more. They've quite possibly 'doomed' the growth of an entire generation).

We could right now be witnessing China's failure to actually reach #1 GDP (at all, or sustainably beyond momentum). This could be the turning point that cements the USA as #1 for another 1-2 decades.[1]

Considering a big part of Chinese population support for the CPC's is based on the premise of economic growth and ever-higher living standards (that's why they shut up and don't ask for more freedoms or political rights, afaik, because they are content to just see their income rising crazy fast), I don't know what this means for the stability of the CPC there (but surely, 10-20 years of recession is a major, fundamental risk to the very existence of, or compliance to, such an oligarchic model).

But yeah, you may be right. We'll just have to agree to disagree on forecasts for now, which should be easy since none of us predicts the future. And my convictions are, again, strong, but loosely held. We need more data (notably, origin of the virus, cause of the spread, etc).

____

[1]: Assuming the USA doesn't worsen their situation too, which seems, ahem... increasingly less likely as we speak, given the abysmal leadership (I don't know how many deaths from COVID it takes to put this country to its knees, but it sure looks like it's trying hard to get there... so weird).

Not to mention the growing hostility towards all foreign powers almost irregardless of their 'allied' status (as if decades of shared history and partnership suddenly meant nothing anymore...)

This to mean rules apply to all, not just China, and everybody might do well to humbly heed that memo. Including national governments in their handling of the situation.

I see the last leg into europe cut off maybe, but not the rest of the countries along the way which happen to have large populations. And don't seem to care much.

Also Africa.

Furthermore...what should Europe, or any european country do? They voluntarily outsourced much of their production capacity into China. This is going on since decades. I've personally seen/experienced it. Do you think they are capable of resourcing it back in an instant? Could they, with all the environmental standards which are there now?

We live in interesting times!

I mean, the West + JP + Oz + etc. is so much bigger than China alone, and the deceitful / lying / financially predatory nature of that country alone is a big deterrent... Not that Europe was better a century ago, or the US as we speak, but...

That's my big fear, tbh. Blocks. Major blocks. If there is too much symmetry in power, it could have dire consequences.

Edit: not "an instant", I said 10 years at least (that's how long it takes to setup a whole new major factory + logistics flow afaik).

Indeed, interesting times. I never thought it'd go this fast this soon tbh. COVID-19 really is provoking a major shift, I think, resurfacing much deeper tensions, much wider than a 'mere' pandemic.

I might have put Bolsonaro's Brazil in there, along with a strong authoritarian turn (but the lure of wealth is a strong populist stance, especially if you can deliver soon(tm), and China would have huge freed capacity to intake massive partners (factories etc) once the West is gone).

It's striking to me that many could choose China not for China but rather against the US. They say "the devil you know..." but I wonder, if said devil scares the hell out of you, you might just try your luck with another one. (case for Africa notably)

See why I fear blocks... Could devolve into a cold-WWI way too soon way too fast. And from there... ah, better not think ahead too soon.

'1st world problems', so to speak.

I tend to spend more time than usual thinking about current events, obviously, but mostly to anticipate, prepare myself, navigate the chaos (should I say 'thrive' even? Yes, I should, and I do).

But indeed, with a cold stare.

Plans are useless, but planning...

If you don't believe this, try to leave the area after a cop wants to detain you.

This article recommends hitting up major brands on their websites, which is ok for all of them except Dell. Dell's website is an absolute shitshow.

I've been using Google Express and liked it quite a bit.

support independently-owned businesses not trying to corner the market on all your personal data.

[1]https://fortune.com/2020/04/14/jeff-bezos-net-worth-2020-bil...

People are stuck at home and as result are forced to shop online which results in increase revenue for the largest online commerce store.

Suddenly a bunch of people want to live on the moon. Rebid, win contract that says I now have 10 deliveries per day. I don't have enough rockets to support 10 deliveries per day, so I need to build a lot.

I also need to do it extremely quickly. Instead of $5B per rocket, I need to pay $10B (expedite, overtime, shortages, etc) in order to meet my contract's deadlines. My capacity also means, I can no longer rely on existing launch sites, $100B to build my own launch site plus an additional $1B per launch.

As long as I can keep my position on this contract, I'll make mega bucks in the long run, but short term I'm hemorrhaging cash.

For example right now they are trying to hire 100,000 people to cover the increased demand. In the meantime, they are making their existing people do the work of those 100,000, or letting the work go undone. In both cases that's lost profits.

Also, paying someone to work overtime to serve the same orders is most definitely lost profit, because it costs more to deliver the service.

Amazon's systems aren't designed for this type of sudden surge. They usually have to ramp up and prepare for it (like around Christmas).

It comes down to the software side of their business, and they have some great back end software.

> This is hardly the first time their system has been overwhelmed

They have specifically said, publicly, multiple times, that they've never seen an increase like this before in the history of their business.

> it’s designed to be robust and maximize profit.

Within limits. It doesn't scale infinitely. There is a human aspect involved that doesn't scale instantly.

> Further, a simple ships in X weeks gives them plenty of time to ramp up staff.

Except, again, you are not accounting for lost profits due to increased customer service requests, increased credits to Prime members for not meeting the Prime SLA, increased costs of the warehouses being full of products they can't move because they are constantly moving the new essential products that are coming in, and a whole bunch of other fixed costs that they have not related to their variable costs.

> They have specifically said, publicly, multiple times, that they've never seen an increase like this before in the history of their business.

That’s true, but not that relevant.

> Increased customer service requests

Customer support is a controllable expense. When customer support lines spike past a threshold they simply lack the people to take additional calls etc.

> Warehouses being full

Amazon has cut down on new items being added while still shipping some non essential items. What your suggesting is an extremely dumb move their not going to make.

> Prime SLA

What prime SLA?

From time to time, Amazon may choose in its sole discretion to add or remove Prime membership benefits. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

> That’s true, but not that relevant.

It was in direct refutation of your claim that they have dealt with this type of load before. They haven't and they have said that they have never dealt with anything like this before. That's why it's relevant.

> Customer support is a controllable expense. When customer support lines spike past a threshold they simply lack the people to take additional calls etc.

You clearly don't understand Amazon if you think this is true. Customer service is their number two core competency after logistics. It is paramount to their success.

Besides, what do you think happens when they stop answering customer service calls? Do you think people just go away? Obviously customer service is important to their business or they wouldn't have it. They can't just drop calls. So no, it's not really controllable.

> What prime SLA?

They're still giving credits if you call in and complain that your item didn't arrive within two days. Even though it tells you before you order that it won't.

Because they care about customer service.

No, I said they have dealt with load past capacity before. Saying it’s 1% or 200% over capacity does not change the fact they have procedures in place to deal with it.

> It is paramount to their success.

Yet, you have not said how it suddenly inherently spikes in cost after their capacity is reached.

> They're still giving credits if you call in and complain that your item didn't arrive within two days.

That’s not an SLA, they will do quite a bit if you call and complain up to a point. It’s designed to maximize revenue not a contract obligation, many companies budget this under advertising costs for a reason.

Further, on the flip side they can reduce normal advertising spending which is more than enough to cover some nominal difference. But you don’t need to take my word for it, their a public company and we can just wait and see what their profit is.

It is an unrelenting expense if you are going to do it in a way that satisfies your customers.

But Buffett and Gates are far wealthier than Bezos.

>What matters is how little workers are paid for such a lucrative business.

What's so lucrative in running a warehouse that packages shipments to people?

I had to check the definition of lucrative to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, but it seems to be both something that generates wealth and/or something that generates profit. There can be no question that amazon generates wealth. The company is now worth almost 1.2 trillion dollars [1], and the founder is now on paper the wealthiest man on earth.

The company also generates quite significant profits, after its initial long phase of investment in growth.

“Amazon annual net income for 2019 was $11.588B, a 15.04% increase from 2018.” [2]

Technically you asked what makes the business lucrative, not whether or not it is in fact lucrative. Well I am not qualified to articulate why the business is lucrative but with 11.5B in net income last year and a total value of 1.2 trillion, there is certainly no question that it is somehow quite lucrative.

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/market...

[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/net-in...

?

I am actually astounded that I just read those words in regards to minimum-wage employees. Considering the context - Jeff Bezos' worth and Amazon's margins - it is absolutely boggling. Is this a sarcastic comment?

If not, I have a genuine press. Can Amazon not do both increasing their mailroom labour and increasing pay/benefits at the same time?

I am absolutely impressed either way.

Median pay for Amazon is $14 per hour, whereas median hourly wage for warehouse employees is $13, so it appears that Amazon pays a small premium over the market wage.

What makes you so special that your gut feeling of Amazon is something that people should pay attention to, rather than market wages?

Much to your surprise you will find that I believe this can be done through libertarian means. This is an area of study and great interest for me.

But if you follow my theory to it’s conclusion you would find that nobody would be willing to work a shitty job for a low wage. And so, to make things work, the market would balance to higher wages. However it wouldn’t hurt anyone for Amazon to raise wages now. It seems inhuman to me what amazon workers are expected to go through. (I feel this way about other and more exploitative labor situations too.)

So the market would require higher wages if we weren’t all individualized. It’s my greatest hope to help bring us all closer together in a libertarian way such that no one wants for food or shelter.

Wow, cute.

Why do you think you can trust what you think should happen?

Do you have special training or is it a burning in your bosom?

Do you walk around saying "The price of raisins should be $3 instead of $2"? On what do you base these moral certainties?

More gut sense?

Or do you have an actual argument that a market wage is wrong and should be replaced with your own personal wage, and why do you think this is a sound argument on which to base an economy?

Don’t be a jerk. I answered your questions honestly.

> Why do you think you can trust what you think should happen?

Are you asking why I want to involve myself in philosophical debate? I’ll refer you to the existing wealth of information on the nature of philosophical debate. You’re certainly free to avoid making any presumptions about how the world should work, but judging by your comments about markets you haven’t done that either.

I want to say, explicit financial markets have their place. But we don’t use them for everything. You don’t charge your neighbor for each hello. Grandma doesn’t charge her children for Christmas dinner. Your friends don’t charge you for relationship advice even though paid equivalents do exist.

So the question is, could we ever possibly arrange the world such that we don’t always need to charge for material goods? The raw stuff of human survival? I think it’s possible if we’re willing to make some changes to society. None of what I advocate for is government based. We can do this with free markets. Markets are shaped by the conditions of our world. Can we create the conditions possible for free food to be as easy to give away as free Wifi?

As a robotics engineer I think we can. But the changes to our society would need to be pronounced. Is it worth it? Well some people might think so, and I want to explore this concept with those people.

In the Kashmir region of India there is a place called the Golden Temple. They serve 50,000 free meals a day using all volunteer labor, firewood, and huge iron pots. So I say “hey we could do this in Oakland with robots, and make the designs open source to share the engineering burden and help other cities do the same.”

So right now I’m employed designing a farming robot I hope will be open source some day.

When I meet people like you on the internet it’s all the same. I say people should have better living conditions and you folks immediately jump on me and say “how could you know that for sure” and “you don’t know what’s good for me”. Well fine. But I’m not asking anything from you. I don’t need anything from you. And I’m not going to make the government take anything from you. So chill out. There’s people in this world that just wanna help each other.

No, you evaded the question. All you see is morality. Your own personal morality. When a software developer says "we should not use this design pattern because it's immoral" that's a person you either remove from their position of power or you mock. Complex phenomena are not subject to childish morality, they are subject to the question of whether they work or not and how well they work.

An economy is a complex system. You want the economy to produce a large amount of goods and services. Once it does, you can always tax the economy and seize output for public spending, so that's the place where we stick your moral sentiments. You do not apply moral reasoning to individual price vectors to insist that it's "wrong" that a tomato costs this much, or that a haircut costs that much.

Morality is an evolved sentiment design to govern your behavior in small tribal groups. You can't apply it to things like an airline scheduling system or a price vector.

>Are you asking why I want to involve myself in philosophical debate?

God, no. I know exactly why you do it. The world is filled with people like you, and indeed all teens go through a casuistry phase. It's a type of self-righteous disease that is the plague of the modern era. Once people lost faith in religion, they redirect their religious fervor to going on various moral crusades like banning straws or building "moral societies" that kill hundreds of millions of people. You might grow out of it at some point when you realize the world is much more complicated than you think, and what matters is that things actually work rather than conform to some mawkish moral sentiment that was never suited to design complex systems but to govern your own personal behavior in simple tribal situations.

No, what I'm wondering is why you think price vectors are "moral" concerns and why you think you are qualified to pronounce on them philosophically.

I’m going to get millions killed by advocating for open source robotics and cooperative businesses? Give me a break. You’re seeing Stalin just because I think we should help one another. We’ve got hungry people sleeping on the streets in the wealthiest nation on earth. We’ve got jails filled with people of color whose only crime was being poor and black. If you don’t think concerned adults can reasonably discuss these subjects without “killing hundreds of millions” you’re a fool.

> You want the economy to produce a large amount of goods and services. Once it does, you can always tax the economy and seize output for public spending, so that's the place where we stick your moral sentiments.

You think the height of moral achievement is to use the government to tax incomes? Well that government also uses tax dollars to bomb weddings and school busses in the Middle East. And asking the government to help means deadlock fighting with people who don’t give a shit about your cause or the people you want to help. Excuse me for considering how we can help one another directly, without government intervention. Sheesh, I’m surprised on HN to find someone that thinks taxes are the best way to behave morally.

And what of the adults who advocate for better social programs through government spending anyway? Are you going to call them children too? You can always feel superior in your arguments if you call your opponents children.

Which leaves no one better off.

If what costs $50 last year now costs $80, I'm actually worse off if I'm making $20/hr instead of $15.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/14/21221326/amazon-affiliate...

Converting his Paper wealth into Liquid wealth is downright impossible for Bezos. Which is why he limited to pre arranged to divestment plans.

I think the worker safety issues are completely orthogonal and shouldn't have anything to do with how profitable you are. In fact, you'll like find far worse conditions (and more tax evasion) in small local businesses than Amazon.

Not sure why it is government's business unless some law is being violated. Using government to enforce "I feel good about it" policies through violence is a sure shot way to harming everyone.

Treatment given to Amazon (or any other employee) employee has nothing to do with the profits of the company, it is all about what the competitors are able to give to those employees.

Constant vilification of factories and large manufacturing corps eventually took all those jobs to China, same might happen with tech companies as well.

I recently ordered a $100 drawer shelf for a 12U rolling AV cart. The shelf was deeper than described so it jutted past the back of the rack. I sought a return. For which NewEgg charged $70 in return freight and a $15 restocking fee. Meaning I lost $85 and a few hours of time because NewEgg wouldn’t stand by the specs on their site.

To add insult to injury, the first step of their return policy is a YouTube video. As if part returns are so complicated. Amazon blows. But not like this.

I’m just one data point. Maybe an exception. I will never do business with NE again (but I still love how they fight patent trolls)

Whenever I search for something like that for US/Canada I end up on a site that indexes Amazon/ebay with affiliate links.

I think the affiliate links destroyed them all, removing the incentive for them to offer the best price and instead only serve up the most profitable (to them) links.

- NewEgg for electronics

- Walmart/Target. You have to be careful with walmart as that they have an open market place

- Aliexpress for assorted small things that I can wait on

- Abebooks (although they're owned by amazon :( ) for used books

- Vitacost (owned by koger) for supplements/vitimins etc

I've gone through 2018, 2019, and 2020 so far without placing a single Amazon order.

It's a bit annoying to have to do this on every search, though.

(You can think what you want about Amazon, but it's a remarkably provincial piece.)

depends on who you are. If you live in the UK, sure. If you live anywhere else, this article is not very useful.

All politics aside, I find it very interesting that this seems to be a law that people just think companies are evil when they are big.

Plus, as you get bigger, you start looking at how you can marginally increase your growth. You go from "just make people happy" to "we could probably exclude a lot of low-margin items from Prime shipping and not see cancelations while improving our profits". You start trying to tie things together so that if people want one part of your experience, they need to accept other parts. You start trying to figure out how to optimize your labor cost, potentially in ways that aren't great for your workers. You start getting a lot of people that can improve the company in ways that aren't necessarily evil, but aren't exactly friendly. By this time, people don't really have an alternative.

I mean, a lot of people loved Walmart when it was new. It was this all-in-one store with great prices. Over time, competing businesses were crowded out of the market by Walmart and customers had less choice. It also meant that retail labor had less choice with Walmart becoming a greater percentage of the jobs. It also meant that businesses selling things like TVs had less choice and Walmart could pressure them.

I think power is ultimately pretty toxic. Amazon has succeeded in part because it's really good at what it does. However, another part of its success is the power it exerts on competitors, over labor, over suppliers, and over customers. Small companies just never have power to exert so they can never seem that unfriendly. Unfriendly small companies just cease to exist or at least can be ignored. Unfriendly large companies can use their power to force a lot of things to try and keep their throne.

I would love to hear if there are examples of companies that have "done everything right" that are still loved. I feel like there is a natural journalistic hatred towards anyone very large (and sometimes it is totally deserved). Perhaps there are no pure large companies and that's why...or perhaps most business decisions are tradeoffs where either side won't please everyone and that just opens up room for attack. I really don't know the answer (even if we agree that Amazon deserves the negative press).

It was only after talking to activists that he realized they were also well aware that everyone else in the coffee industry was even worse than Starbucks but because they weren't as famous, activists would intentionally target the #1 player because that's the way to play the news cycle.

Replace krill with humans and sooner or later Jeff the Blue Whale needs full time protection in a special sanctuary. In Nature if the Whale gets too efficient the eco system collapses and then reboots. Stability trumps Bigness.

Book reco - Serangeti Rules - Sean Carroll.

I meant "from a book citing Bezos".

1. In terms of logistics it seems to me they handed every other logistic company's arse to them - even those that have been running for hundreds of years and thus which you might hope to have some expertise in the field, and conversely even the newer companies which you might hope are relatively unburdened by inertia etc. Prime is awesome.

2. At the risk of sounding heartless, I don't care about all the struggling small competitors. Times and industries change, and Amazon's approach is simply more efficient. Does it really benefit society to have x thousands of people running their own e-commerce business rather than finding something else to do? Should we be putting restrictions on weaving machines in order to support manual weavers? Or supporting buggy whip manufacturers by taxing car makers? Where do we draw the line?

3. I don't care about the tax avoidance etc. I'd rather see Bezos spend the money on rocketry than have governments wasting yet more on handouts. The former will probably benefit humanity more in the end.

4. Price. If Amazon weren't almost always equal or very slightly above competitors I wouldn't use it. But it is. Why should I pay more? To support ye olde historical e-commerce shoppe?

Well, we should if behind the scenes those weaving machines were kept operational by an army of low-wage workers.

To point 2: Monopolies are Bad Thing.

To point 3: You really don't believe that billionaires should pay their share, the way the rest of us do? Also, given the lockdown, there's no option but for the government to offer handouts. A huge proportion of the country is unable to work, through no fault of their own.

To point 4: You're right that economies of scale have allowed Amazon to undercut everyone else on price. WalMart did the same. I don't blame you for buying from Amazon, but the problems with their monopoly shouldn't be downplayed.

Don't worry, the government will get the money from somewhere. If not from Amazon then from you.

As a long time seller/buyer I’ve developed a set of heuristics around eBay (most of them obvious - avoid non US based accounts, descriptions where the photos are clearly not the actual item itself, etc) and I’ve only had one or two bad surprises in over 10 years. Both times customer support came through.

A buyer screwed me out of 5 drone (DJI Mavic 2) batteries and $700. Two weeks after getting the drone, “none of the batteries work”. Really? All five? I was skeptical, but said I’d do a partial refund if he’d commit in writing that the partial refund was contingent on him returning the batteries so I could repair, or replace (at least two were still in warranty, if there was ever even a problem). At no point did he show any actual evidence of battery issues (DJI Go battery diagnostics, etc.), just "it's not showing anything".

He sent a message agreeing, via eBay messages with the text I'd sent him, even with "should I not do this, I understand that seller will dispute the transaction".

Not even an hour later he sent another message “USPS won’t ship damaged batteries so I am not returning them”.

I went to eBay with all this, and his agreement. eBay said he could keep the $700. And the five batteries.

That’s what makes me weary that there’s any way you can truly avoid Amazon. For many sellers it’s just easier to outsource their warehousing and fulfillment operations to FBA and use Amazon’s warehouse as a 3PL (third party logistics), and I wouldn’t be surprised if <random eBay/Shopify seller> used Amazon for fulfillment purposes.

Do treat the delivery guy with something though, I usually offer homemade sweets and/or free alcohol beer. They deserve it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boycotts

Because they have to. It certainly wasn't always the case.

Going back to photography, you totally trust B&H. You know the equipment has been treated well since it arrived from the factory. No chance of grey market stuff either.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DI5SXM6 https://www.amazon.com/Jungle-Only-Way-Out-Explicit/dp/B07NZ... https://www.amazon.com/Blueprint-FERRY-CORSTEN/dp/B071S3RLL3

Currently avoiding Amazon however I can't get a garden sieve/riddle in my preferred local store. So I have to go on Amazon if I really want one.

My local store has a sieve for £5 when in stock. That is all the sieve options, take it or leave it. The decision is easy. But, on Amazon, there is paralysis of choice. Hundreds of sieves to choose from, invariably more expensive than the £5 local store price. With shipping on top.

The choice works with books but not with everything. A decent retailer only sells top quality stuff with an affordable option and maybe a super deluxe option, so your choice is between a small amount of items. Amazon doesn't help with that.

It happened to me many time that Amazon show me higher price when I go there and search directly, then when I open the same product page by copy&pasting the Amazon url in the incognito window.

Not to mention that coming to Amazon through the idealo.de or some other meta engine gives sometimes even better price.

To hell with them, most of the competition in Germany doesn't do those scummy things. And the delivery and return policies are mandated by law anyway.

Then why is this not only overlooked by this article, but not even touched upon. That I find most curious.